The XX Factor: What women really think.

When Is a Single Dad Not a Single Dad?

Sound the trumpets. Not for Obama's inauguration. Even better. The Bachelor is featuring its first ever "single dad" this season. Or so everyone says. "Single Dad a First for The Bachelor," reads a headline in the Chicago Tribune. His bio on the show's site calls him "a handsome single dad—the first in the series' history." And in a post on Glamour's Web site called "The Bachelor: Enter the (HOT) Single Dad," Christina Coppa raves about the "single, smingle dad": "Did you catch the sunset silhouette of Jason with his little son on his shoulders? Stop. Movie moment!"

Yes, Jason Mesnick is cute (if you go for that clean-cut, cheesily symmetrical look). Yes, he's single—a status he is trying to change by the tried-and-true method of surrounding himself with a bunch of cameras, 25 ridiculously attractive women, and detailed rules about when and how he can spend time with them all. And yes, he's a dad to 3-year-old Ty. But is he really the single dad everyone's holding him up to be? To me (and the male friend who alerted me to this strangely applied label) "single dad" means a dad doing it on his own. A widower, most likely, like the bumbling Dan Aykroyd character in My Girl, or maybe someone abandoned by his wife, like the sweetly depressed couch-bound father in Pretty in Pink. But not a divorced guy splitting parenting "50-50" (although obviously less at times ... like when he's starring in reality-TV shows) with his son's mom.

It's bad enough on the macro level that a hot guy with a kid gets extra strokes for being all sensitive and adorable while a hot woman with a kid is viewed as having baggage. Even child-loving Jason seems to think so: He kicked off two of the four single moms in the first episode! But it's even more appalling on the micro level to picture Ty's mom having to sit at home and watch everyone oooh and ahhh at the commitment of this so-called single dad as Ty plays at her feet. I hope she gets herself some airtime over this, to assert the fact that yes, she is still very much in the picture and involved in raising her son. If Jason is as close to her as he says he is and their approach to Ty's upbringing so collaborative, maybe the ex-wife should get to come on the show, Slade-style, and have a say in which of these ladies gets to join the family.